Bus stop screens make me scream
THERE are many pointless things in life. The wearing of neck-ties, for instance. Or the very existence of Ant and Dec.
But none, I think, is quite as pointless as those electronic signs that have been installed at many of our bus stops and purport to give the time that the next bus will arrive.
Now I’m quite willing to concede that it’s quite useful to know whether you’re going to wait five minutes or 50 for the next double-decker to trundle nonchalantly into sight on an icily cold February morning when you’re in a rush to get somewhere fast.
But, fellow passengers, how many times have you been waiting at a stop and the sign has given totally misleading information?
You know the scenario... or, rather, scenarios.
There’s the one (quite pleasant, actually) when a bus arrives at the stop while the sign is telling you it will be another seven minutes. Then there’s the one (altogether more irritating) when the sign tells you the bus will be two minutes and you’re still waiting ten minutes later.
Or the occasions when the time showing varies dramatically – moving up and down with all the rapidity of Tiger Woods’s Y-fronts.
With such glitches, any reliability that these signs might have is undermined and they become about as useful as a roulette wheel at a Methodist convention.
Centro (which some cynics might suggest is itself a fairly pointless body) has lavished a fortune on this system.
Far better the money had been spent on a few burly, surly inspectors to discourage the sort of yobbery that frequently makes travelling by bus in this city such a deeply unpleasant experience.
Or even on a few extra buses and drivers on those routes that, at present, are ill-served.
Instead we have another example of something done in the name of “customer service” that does precious little at all to help consumers.
Like those infuriating phone systems that require you to press one number after another to get through to the correct department.
Or those little questionnaires that get you to rate your experience on a flight or in a restaurant or staying in a hotel and which, in all probability, end up unread in the dusty filing cabinet next to someone’s desk.
Public bodies and private companies are all too eager to window-dress – to make pronouncements of their commitment to customer care and to find gimmicky ways to appear to be doing something.
When what they need to do, of course, is employ an adequate number of suitable staff who have been properly trained in key positions.
Don’t hold your breath, though.
Doing something as basic as that would deny the spin-doctors the chance to generate a bit of headline-hogging publicity about them embracing the latest technology to provide people with the best services.
Like waiting at a bus stop and watching a few numbers randomly appear on a screen above your head...
